Bill Priestap (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)
“A senior FBI official’s handwritten notes from the earliest days of the Trump administration expressed concern that the bureau might be “playing games” with a counterintelligence interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to get him to lie so “we could prosecute him or get him fired.”
The notes and other emails were provided to Flynn’s lawyers under seal last week and released Wednesday night by court order, providing the most damning evidence to date of potential politicization and misconduct inside the FBI during the Russia probe.
The notes show FBI officials discussed not providing Flynn a Miranda-like warning before his January 2017 interview — a practice normally followed in such interviews — so that he could be charged with a crime if he misled the agents, the officials said.
“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?,” the handwritten notes of the senior official say. The notes express further concern the FBI might be “playing games.”
Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.
You can download and read the notes here:
FlynnFBINotes.pdf
(…) The handwritten notes suggest the FBI official had a concern about the way his bureau was approaching the interview with Flynn.
“I agreed yesterday that we shouldn’t show Flynn [REDACTED] if he didn’t admit • I thought @ it last night, + I believe we should rethink this,” he wrote.
Later he added: “If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious • Protect our institution by not playing games.”
The notes hint that some in the FBI might have believed giving Flynn the normal warning or allowing him the courtesy to see a transcript of his calls with Russians to refresh his recollection was “going easy” on the new Trump national security adviser.
“I don’t see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him,” the official wrote to himself.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 4/29/2020) (Archive)